Scripture for Your Inner Outcasts

Transcript

"With all my heart I seek you, let me not stray from your commands. Within my heart I treasure your promise, that I may not sin against you."

Welcome back to Scripture for Your Inner Outcasts. Today is February 7th, 2026, Saturday of the Fourth Week in Ordinary Time. Today we are joined by clinical psychologist Dr. Peter Malinoski, the co-founder and president of Souls and Hearts and host of our sister podcast, Interior Integration for Catholics.

It is so good to be with you for this episode on February 7th, Saturday of the Fourth Week of Ordinary Time, I'm focusing on Psalm 119, verses 10 to 11. This is our responsorial psalm. "With all my heart I seek you, let me not stray from your commands. Within my heart I treasure your promise, that I may not sin against you." You exiled parts, whether you know it or not, are looking for redemption. You are looking for our God. With all my heart I seek you. And what so often happens, and you may not know this, but that parts that are exiled, carrying burdens, are looking for redemption. Not necessarily intuitively from God, but often from the ones who hurt you. You are often looking to be redeemed by the one who hurt you. That's natural. But it doesn't work. So often when I've worked with folks that have struggled with pornography, I found that for so many men, the images they're most attracted to are similar to their mothers, especially if those mothers were not particularly close to them or there was some sort of disruption in the attachment. And again, they didn't know that. They didn't realize that. That actually sometimes freaks out their manager parts when they discover that, as Scottish author Bruce Marshall, he put into the mouth of his protagonist, priest Father Smith, in his 1945 novel The World, The Flesh, and Father Smith, he said, "I still prefer to believe that sex is a substitute for religion, and that the young man who rings the bell at the brothel is unconsciously looking for God." I agree with that. Exiles are looking for God, but so often they don't know it.

They're looking for something that only God can provide, but through human means that were often similar to the ones that wounded them. This is why the law is so helpful to our exiles, the commandments, the Scriptures, the Catechism, because it sets some boundaries around what's good and what's not very clearly. So that if an exile is desiring something that is out of bounds, right, there can be this possibility of recognizing that and seeking in a way that will help you to find. Not every kind of seeking leads to finding. Seek and ye shall find, our Lord tells us, but it implies that the seeking is ordered. And so one thing I just want all parts to know within your system is that parts are looking for something good. They're seeking something good. Often they are disconnected from what is actually good because parts are so often very young. Their experience is very limited. They're not mature. And so the teachings of the church provide that guidance so that the seeking stays in bounds and oriented toward our Lord. If you want to find out more about how this might connect with pornography, use check out my 90 minute workshop titled Working with Parts Who Want Porn. You can find that at Souls and Hearts. That's our resource page. Or you can also check out Interior Integration for Catholics episodes 51 to 56. And with that, we'll draw this to a close by invoking our patroness and our patrons. Our Lady, our Mother, Untier of Knots, pray for us. Saint Joseph, pray for us. Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.